Page:A Danish and Dano-Norwegian grammar.djvu/106

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
92
ETYMOLOGY.

them upon a footing of intimacy. The act of drinking “dus’ is performed with certain ceremonies.

Note 3. Colloquially han and hun are often used referring to animals according to their natural gender, and in N. colloquially or rather vulgarly even to things according to thegender (masculine or feminine) which the noun in question has in colloquial Norwegian language.


II. THE REFLEXIVE AND RECIPROCAL PRONOUNS.


191a. The reflexive pronoun is sig (pronounce D, sai, N. sei), which can only be used in dependent functions, corresponding to a subject of 3d person, when the direct or indirect object is the same person or thing as the subject; Ex. han slog sig he hurt himself; N. de satte sig paa Bænkene they sat down upon the benches (but D. as a rule de satte dem, because in modern Danish sig is very rarely used referring to a subject of plural).

Sig is never used reflexively to De you: slog De Dem? did you hurt yourself?

Observe: hver for sig each for himself, separately.

191b. Reciprocal pronouns are hinanden and hverandre, one another each other. Hinanden should, according to the grammarians, be used referring to a subject consisting of two parties, hverandre to three or more. Ex.: Han og hun saa hinanden for förste Gang he and she saw each other for the first time. Alle faldt om Halsen paa hverandre they all threw themselves upon one another’s necks.

But this rule of the grammarians is rarely observed in the spoken language.